#1 leadership warning signs

Jesus warned us to not be deceived many times.  Today there is much deception in the church from leaders. I'm sure they exist, but I'm not sure any leader would intend on deceiving, it is more the case that they get deceived to become a deceiver.   In this observation I want to draw us to Peters encouragement to 'wholesome thinking' in 2 Pet 3:1.  He wants us to pay attention to the Prophets and the Apostles, through whom the Lord worked and spoke ie. the Old and New Testament writings.

1.  Read Jeremiah 6.  It is a warning of God's Judgement on Jerusalem.  From 6:13

13 13 “From the least to the greatest,
    all are greedy for gain;
prophets and priests alike,
    all practice deceit.
14 They dress the wound of my people
    as though it were not serious.
‘Peace, peace,’ they say,
    when there is no peace.
15 Are they ashamed of their detestable conduct?
    No, they have no shame at all;
    they do not even know how to blush.
So they will fall among the fallen;
    they will be brought down when I punish them,”
says the Lord.

Much of today's leadership speak messages that do not contain the warnings and admonishments of God's word.  It is a feel good gospel that has no sword that divides (Heb 4:12).  The reason is because they know a message that 'ruffles the feathers' may risk someone not attending.  Non attendance places a risk over the money that comes in from the tithe.  To make sure people stay the message gets watered down.  

The 'dressing of the wounds' is the message that puts plasters on deep cuts in the believers.  These cuts need cleaning, stitching up and bandaging.  What has caused the wounds?  It is the word of God, the Holy Spirit has exposed the flesh and called for holiness.  But the message doesn't call the believers out on it.  The seriousness of wrong practise and unrighteousness is not addressed and therefore the believer doesn't have to address and assess self.  

The elephant in the room of course is the way this is occurring in the New Covenant.  In the Old Covenant you had priests and prophets to speak the word of God and the hearers acted accordingly.  We shouldn't even have the 'priest-figure' at all.  So the error of today is the 'priests' are acting like Old Covenant priests by the way they posture as 'God's man or woman.'  They also masquerade as prophets by saying they speak the 'word of God.'  Then they don't correct the believers who gather to treat them like priests and in fact, many revel in the way this raises their status as a believer.  

There is an art in making believers feel pacified about their lives.  It is the skill to know all the right things that make westerners feel comfortable.  Don't tell them they need to die to self, but if you do tell them, don't market God's process (which is agony).  Don't tell them they have a responsibility to walk in the light of their status as a child of God (which is a moment by moment challenge).  Make their Christian life and success about an external Key Performance Indicators wrapped up in serving... ahem... the church.  Make them enter a 'we can become...' mindset where they will never suspect that if they are born again... they already have become!

I take this as a warning to me, that I will speak out God's word fearlessly and not compromise the message for the sake of gain.  That gain doesn't have to be financial, It can be the gains of the ego when we see many following us.  The Gospel is all about us dying to self in order to make God have all the gains, or 'glory' as it is.  May we all take God at His word and allow the scripture to break our hearts open.

Gary Ward

Oh How He loves me!

Many of my writings are dealing with the often difficult walk we have as Christians.  I can sometimes neglect the elephant in the room ... that my Father in heaven loves me and you totally.  I have a fair knowledge of the workings of the cross and can readily explain some of the achievements of Calvary.   It is often good to come out from the Greek text and theology to gaze at the plain truth of the cross:  This is the length my Father in Heaven would go to rescue me from my self.  His love for me is THAT much... that he would crush His own Son in order for me to be off the hook.  Let's have a 'Selah' moment, a moment to really have that sink in.

God, the creator of the universe, has such a regard toward me that He would allow his innocent Son to receive the penalty for my sin - something that is an act of pure rebellion towards Him.  So it is more important that I will forever be with Him than it is that I wilfully do the opposite of His will. God knew that once He shows me Jesus, He would be the darling of my existence.  And the wildest thing about that is my Father in Heaven gives me the ability to see Jesus this way.  

About 10 years ago I wrote a song called 'Who you are' and the idea was to get away from the practise of assessing our lives to see God's love based on 'stuff.'  From the idea that 'stuff' underlines our blessing gives rise to the prosperity gospel - a false teaching that our status, wealth, possessions or level of notoriety in Christian circles is an indication of God's blessing.  All of these CAN be blessing from God but not necessarily a system of blessing.  Much of the church today are trying to appear blessed by accumulating things.  The problem we have is starting points.  Has your life accumulated things from the hand of God or are you demonstrating the hand of God by accumulating things?  The latter is an error.  Its not error to have things... its just wrong to point at them and use the things as an indication of blessing-levels.

My Father demonstrated His love for me at Calvary and by including me in the New Covenant before Creation (read Ephesians and Romans).  He gave me the most beautiful 'Eve', my wife, Helen.  He also blessed me with my Children who aren't so much children any more.  He blessed me with a life that has challenges, so I can grow.  He has blessed me by facilitating a life in a warm climate, something good for our health as a family.  He has also blessed me with work to be able to engage the western systems and structures we have to live in.  He has more recently allowed us to buy a house 600 meters from the Indian Ocean.  I can hear the waves from my bedroom.  The Lord has also blessed me by dragging me by the scruff of the soul out from the church systems that history formed.  He allowed me to see ekklesia as per the scriptures.  He is delivering me from a great enemy and threat to me... me!  He has given the grace to relay His truth through various means.  I give thanks for this and many more things daily.   He is lavishing his love on me and my family all the time.  

So do I have 'stuff?'  Yes!  But it's all from the hand of God.  And that means that whether we are well catered for or in poor circumstances (that has happened also) it is all from the hand of God. And that has to be enough!  Oh how He loves me to lavish this upon me, a sinner saved by Grace.  It will always be the cross that says "you are loved" by the Almighty Lord and Creator of all things. 

Gary Ward 

Understanding the Trinity?

You can argue if you want to but God is three separate persons in Scripture.  This has always been a struggle for believers to get to grips with but for us it may be just a little easier.  In the opening centuries the word 'Trinity' was used to describe this 'three is ...er... one' thing.  The word doesn't appear in the Bible but the word 'Soup' doesn't appear in the ingredients of mushed together food products. Like 'Trinity,' 'Soup' is just a word to label the contents.  So... It's just a word.  What gets quite interesting is to fathom how the very distinct three are actually one.  And just in case you stop reading here... they are... actually one!  It's all true.

In modern times we have to come to terms that there is provably more to this universe than meets the eye.  We live in four dimensions, time being a physical dimension (thanks Einstein).  It is not conjecture that there are more dimensions we are not able to access.  Do some research on this but beware of the ideas that claim there are other universes and other ridiculous claims.  Science has shown that there are dimensions in which our four dimensional reality exist.  Some feel this is the place where the Bible says spectral beings exist and the Lord is enthroned.  It points to our reality being a kind of digital simulation occurring within a greater reality and you can read Ephesians, Colossians to hint at this being accurate.

The multi-dimensional reality beyond our own helps me with some difficult concepts.  I struggle with the idea of the Trinity because three cannot be one.  However that idea that 'three cannot be one' is based on my four dimensional existence.  My entire being has existed in this 4D world and I cannot think beyond it.  In the Multidimensional (MD) place however it is possible for three to be one.  Or more accurately, when being presented in our 4D world, the Trinity is how God helps us understand Him.

When I think of a being I think of one persona.  I cannot imagine a place where one being can be more than one being.  This is because I cannot understand the MD reality.  I imagine that in the MD reality all the rules change.  what we know about reality is based on a 4D reality.  Beyond here this will change things.  The world beyond here which the Bible talks about seems to be able to house your soul without your body.  It also allows beings to travel between MD and 4D.  Many feel the UFO sightings are not aliens but spectral beings from MD manifesting in our 4D.  I don't want to go into 'space cadet' territory with this but many things start to make sense when we consider the MD and our 4D as a subsection of it.

A while ago a friend of mine said that 0.9999 recurring actually equals 1.  For me this was intriguing because I have been satisfied that 1+1= 2.  I have been trained to think in these terms.  My friend told me that one third is 0.3333 recurring.  Then two thirds is 0.6666 recurring. So three thirds is 0.99999 recur.... hold one a second!  How is this so?  Three thirds is 1 and 0.99999 recurring.... BRAIN MALFUNCTION!  I suppose this is a poor example of how we can sign off on what reality is yet even here all is not what it seems.  I often do this thing where I say my mother was 30 when she gave birth to me.  I was a thirtieth of her age.  In 15 years she was 45 and I was then a third of her age!  In another 15 years I was HALF her age!!  This is a trick with starting points et al but causes a few raised eyebrows in company.  Back to some biblical (specul)observations:

Did we lose some dimensionality when the fall occurred?  How did Jesus do what he did when resurrected before He ascended?  As believers we are 'seated in heavenly places with Christ' while alive... can it be that a part of us is already present in the MD?  Can it be that miracles are the manifestation of MD reality imposing itself in 4D existence?  Paul speaks of our sudden transformation at Jesus' coming and we meet Him in the air... all possible because of the properties of a MD reality?

Let's just recalibrate for a second.  The Bible is consistent with these observations but what are we given to focus on?  I think it is a good thing to think over such things (Pr 25:2) but not be dragged away into false teachings.  Good people are getting carried away with these matters and now we have 'portals' where the Lord can bless you or angels / demons can come through.  Nothing biblical about that for sure!  What we are given as a focal point is a Man. His name is Jesus as He is the Lord God of all creation.  In our seeking and searching let's remain Christ centred, trusting Him to lead us in paths of righteousness.   If He does dwell in a multi-dimensional reality, He is sure capable of fixing us and delivering us into our futures.  Put your trust in God, although we don't fully grasp the 'three is one' teaching of the Bible, at least we can start to understand why it is hard to understand.

Gary Ward

Is it 'Him' or 'it' you want?

In the first chapters of John's gospel Jesus finds a couple of men following Him.  To me that would be enough but Jesus did this: 

"But when Jesus turned around and saw them following, he asked them, “What are you looking for?”

Jesus says this to us constantly.  The answer to this question really only has two categories.  It is either 'Him' we are looking for or something else... the 'it.'  It is impossible to detect in a home or hall full of believers what their core motivation is.  Also, if we start casting aspersions without data, we a perilously close to judging.  Also it is crucial to recognise people can, and do, change.  Over a long time though we will see what the person has been pursuing within the parenthesis of 'christianity.'   This observation is referring to people who are true believers, it is happenning to God's children.

For some time I ran with the idea that big is beautiful regarding church.  I wanted to push back from the staid, boring church meeting that seemed to smell like mould.  I opted to be one of the pioneers that made church relevant, contemporary and cutting edge.  In doing so we lost the meaning of 'family' and crushed the authentic in the rush to help God fix the problem.  when I began recognising the plastic revival I felt led out from this.  Others still pursue the high octane meetings because it attracts people who are looking for 'it.'  I have no comment on the degree 'Him' comes into it but as 'it' becomes louder, media savvy and seemingly successful, the crowd flocks.  People call 'it' success and pledge allegence to the leader who made 'it' happen.  "They must have 'something' genuine from God" is the conclusion.  Their profile gets raised in the hearts of the people and 'it' towers over the 'Him' that saved their souls.  

Now there is a problem with moving from 'It' to 'Him.'   It will cost you everything.  We don't really like that much at all.  Pain is to be AVOIDED.  I mean who wants to go thru a process where 'It' bleeds from our lives as God tries to have us free?  Yet this is the call.  Every 'it,' including your church, your leaders, your vision statement, your national profile, your cd sales, your gifted evangelist are all idols before God.  " But Gary, God has blessed our church!"  Really?  Isn't regular giving into a church account actually people giving money?  Isn't the presentation of cutting edge technology and media simply marketing?  Is God blessing your church or is it just another way to attract people to your project?  You don't say God is transporting you to a destination when you drive a car do you?  The car is taking you there.  In the same way, when we design and practice church our way, it is in and of itself a system.  Church 'engines' differ, but they are, in the final summation... engines!

When Jesus asked the disciples 'what are you looking for?' they answered 'where are you staying?'  Jesus said 'come and you will see.'    The disciples answer was crucial.  They wanted to know about Messiah.  This would be tested along their own journey and Mark 10 shows a couple of disciples pursuing 'it.'  It sounds very legitimate... a question about their placing in the coming kingdom, but it could become an 'it' ... a pursuit of placing over 'Him.'  

If we don't become free of pursuing 'it' we will see 'it' come to fruition.  If we pursue 'Him' we will see His will come to fruition.  Its that simple.  I see much fruit from the pursuit of 'it' everywhere.  There's little fruit from 'Him' sadly.  So if you can identify that you have made the things of Him central to your life instead of Him, you can do something about it.  Many will throw away this observation because 'It' fells better to the senses than 'Him.'

Can you choose to give all for Him?  Can you willingly forsake the rewards of this life to willfully do God's purposes?  Essentially it is a decision to place God over our own aims and objectives in Christianity. This is precisely what Jesus did in his death on the cross.  He places our welfare over his own with staggerring consequences.  Did he do that so we could morph ekklesia into a well managed organisation?  I think not.  

Gary Ward

Brother

A (nother) Warning

Part of persecution is creating choices in others.  The choice others make is to either come near to my life or exit from it.  As per Biblical dimensions, people largely exit my life and that leads to a lack of comrades in this journey.  Is it because I am difficult?  Probably! But the difficulty is an insistence on the Lord being central to all things.  Obviously I have my blind spots but even to myself I am insistent that He will be all in all things.  That is hard to be around.

However... If you are a person who is not in the business of making the Lord all... I've got an issue.  Firstly, I can understand the journey gets tough and we fail.  My hand is first to go up on this one.  But I know people who consider the Lord to be a convenience, some category to sit back on and treat like a 'go-to' when all is turning to shizzle.   This gets my attention because it is that sort of thing which much of the church fuels.

Jesus is marketed as a problem solver.  In western thinking we largely exist to make the journey sweet.  Many have the mentality of 'apply Jesus' when the road gets tough.  If I was coming from a pious, self righteous point of view, looking down on the 'Jesus elastoplast' culture, I would be as wrong.  My concern is much deeper.

If we don't engage the Lord for who he actually is and allow Him to deeply affect us, we are vulnerable to the great deceptions that are coming upon us.  There is a great deception coming which will deceive 'even the elect' for a time.  The elect are the genuinely saved people but genuinely saved people can be far from the Lord in practice.  It is this which I am concerned about... the ones who are in a 'category' of saved yet live with their own passions, desires, willfulness and self as priority.

I understand that it takes a while for people to yield, abandon and submit to the Lord.  I'm one who thinks the whole thing is a work of the Spirit.  But I come across people who feel their life consists of a soap opera while speaking of the Lord with familiar terms.  Taking on information and rationalizing the bible means nothing if the content is resisted in the core of self.  It isn't an exercise in processing data... it is supposed to be a violent reconfiguring of the core self.   " But Gary, isn't this a bit confronting?"  Yes it is!  It's supposed to be!

Because we are born into a post-enlightenment / post modernist culture, we have certain mindsets that don't come naturally.  One of them is taking self and making the information a secondary issue. Without the intent to do so we will assess data on the basis of 'how does this sit with me?'  While the Bible (God's word) has different intent.  It wants you to re-calibrate all your self to IT.  How you feel and how you consider self to be soooo precious in the equation mean that God's processes will take longer than it should.  "Thanks for your harsh opinion Gary!" But this is what Israel suffered so we would get the message:

Take the painful road of abandonment, submission and yielding to God NOW!

But, alas, more and more I come across people speak of their Jesus knowledge but have little intention of laying down their lives.  It's basically about their own welfare, their own life, their own journey.  The hard truth in all of this is that we are given an image... an icon to consider.  God came into time and said in a horrific display of torture... "This is what I am prepared to do because you are intrinsically loved and valued."  The death of Jesus was supposed to shake us from our sensibilities and grip us with significance that would leave us dumbstruck:

God would demonstrate the most outrageous act of giving that we would offer self for execution.

Ask the Lord today for His grace to expose self, its love affair with 'me' and its tokenistic application to the things above.  Scandalize my short changing of devotion in my core and grip me with the desire to offer all of me into your hands.

Gary Ward

Are you in "God's will?"

Coming up through the pentecostal church in the UK it was the constant pursuit to be 'in God's will.'  Sometimes this was used as a threat... that this supposed moving target required a level of holiness I'd better be making sure I had that level.  Some displayed their evidence for being in God's will like status symbols in the religious strata of ministry life.  Exhausted and unable to reach such heights of holiness... I decided I was disqualified from being in the will of God.  Then I read the Bible.

As someone who, by the grace of God, had been saved, I was justified before God. This meant that I was his child, adopted into His family... a son.  This also meant that I had nothing to prove.  This was God's will.  So being justified in Christ is God's will.  Can I depart from the ideal path he wants for me while justified in Christ?  Of course!  Israel spent so much time as God's chosen yet not following the plan.  What we find, especially in the 'minor' prophets, is God's wrathful anger towards Israel (incorporating Judah for the sake of simplicity).  When they rebelled they willed God's wrath... so in that sense they were in God's will.  When they did good and came back to God they were blessed so they were in God's will.  So however we respond to God we will incur his will... with one exception.

When Jesus was addressing the church at Laodicea they were sternly rebuked for being neither hot nor cold.  They were lukewarm.  Jesus says he wants to spit the lukewarm church out of his mouth.  Hot churches seem to be the ones who are coming back to God and getting with the task of submitting, yielding and abandoning their lives the Jesus.  A cold church seems to be those who have been justified but have little interest in the Lord's sanctification process.  Laodicea appears to have had a type of Christianity where it was neither of these.  It was acting 'hot' yet these devotional actions covered hearts that had little intention to engage the real work of dying to self to see the Lord glorified.

Israel was often accused as being worse that the pagan nations.  Being hot or cold gives the Lord something to work with but having a form or following yet it all being an act to cover nonchalance is sickening to the Lord.  GIVE ME SOMETHING TO WORK WITH!  I feel like Jesus is saying:

 'Either get with the plot or completely disregard me so I can 'wrath' you into submission. But don't play at being spiritual and walking well... That's making me sick.'

Are you in God's will?  The question is more like 'Is God in your will?'  Meaning when you pursue the aims and objectives of your life (that is in Christ) is God the central factor of all you propose?

Time is short.

Gary Ward

'Cross Carrying' Christianity?

Many believers say that their 'cross' is their particular problem they have which is distinct to them.  Carrying your cross is termed as putting up with the issue with a good attitude.  Actually cross carrying is something entirely different.  The aim of God in our walk is to make us in the image of Jesus.  This image is not just doing nice things or noble tasks but actually being transformed.  Many never get to real cross carrying because they lean on and become dependent on the 'stuff' of church, ministries and personalities.

There is a way of walking an authentic walk and that is to get back to an unhindered walk with the Lord.  But then you have to be subject to His ways.  That is uncomfortable but Jesus said that disciples must carry their own cross or they can't be His disciples (Luke 14:27).  The terminology is used because all followers of Jesus are on a program that leads to the death of 'self.'  Cross carriers are heading for a season of crucifixion... a time when several factors come together to destroy our willful selves.  

Like real crucifixion the process of death to self has similar elements:

• It hurts so much you will be utterly shocked at it's ferocity
• You cannot avoid it.  No matter what you do you are nailed!
• You will cry out for relief from God
• You will think God has forsaken you 
• It will feel like past hurts are being exploited
• It is suffocating
• You may shout at God because you are infuriated

Why does this have to happen?  Well, it's the only way to have us get fixed from willfulness and self.  People like me who have had some difficult things to deal with in life may feel like you could do with a break... not dragged through pain again!  That's hard but just imagine this:

In order to save willful and selfish people, the pure, holy and innocent Lamb of God was REALLY crucified.  I won't go into the details but this is absolute physical agony.  Worse still, in order for me to be united with God, Jesus had to be excluded from the Trinity.  The horror of this is unspeakable when we consider He had never experienced separation from his Father.  All of this was done by someone who doesn't deserve it.  The Father watched as His son endured the cross.  

I do deserve that which Jesus did for me.  Torturous pain, separation from God and humiliation from people is what I deserve yet I have been let off the hook by God.  When pain and agony comes in Christian life it is designed for my betterment.  My cross carrying is a real experience but not a punishment.  It is designed to heal.  While I'm struggling with the cross It feels shockingly hard and painful.  However, I know that this is part of God's purposes to fix me.  The Lord wants me to be more like Jesus and that is the best thing for me.  After a season of pain and suffering there is a season of walking in its result.  Whatever it was all for is evidenced in my life and will result in freedom.  

When you are in the pain of the cross remember whats coming... Resurrection!

Gary Ward